Kirsten Baity
Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department alum Kirsten Baity ’21, who graduated Summa cum Laude with a BA in Theatre with a Playwriting concentration, has been selected as one of two inaugural members of About Face Theatre’s Green Room Collective, a new program for early career LGBTQ+ arts leaders. The program will help advance the next generation of LGBTQ+ leaders in their theatre-related career and educational goals and represents a bold investment in the future of the LGBTQ+ community and the arts. All participants are paid a sustainable wage to collaborate on artistic and administrative projects that are at the heart of AFT’s work. They receive dedicated and individualized support from AFT staff and artists to cultivate skills in areas of their choosing, including devising new works, producing, development, and marketing.
Megan Carney
“It was important to me that we hire . . . artists with strong creative ideas as well as specific areas where they would like to practice and grow,” says About Face Theatre‘s artistic director Megan Carney, a Columbia College Theatre Department faculty member.
About Face Theatre established itself as a place for LGBTQ+ youth leaders more than 20 years ago with the creation of the About Face Youth Theatre. Over the years, AFT’s nationally-recognized education program has grown to include the organization’s community engagement and touring shows as well as the Youth Task Force.
Baity is a playwright, lyricist, performer, director, and teaching artist whose work has been produced at Theater Between Addresses, Quaranstream Play Festival, Columbia College’s 12-hour Play festival and Musical Theatre Festival, Perceptions Theatre, The Youth Empowerment Performance Project, and About Face Theatre. They have devised plays with Goodman Theatre’s Playbuild Ensemble, About Face Youth Theatre, For Youth Inquiry, and Free Street. In addition to their work directly related to theatre, they have consulted on two curriculums to help uplift queer and trans young people of color in the education system and are the community outreach coordinator for Intimacy Coordinators of Color.
